Scotweb Online Tartan Design - an update

[Nick Fiddes]

Firstly, many thanks to everyone who gave our early 'alpha' version of the online tartan design facility at http://www.scotweb.co.uk/tartandesign/ a try. Your feedback was extremely useful as ever.

We have now updated the site with a lot of bug fixing and quite a few new features. And at the same time we've moved to a formal 'Closed Beta' launch. Basically what this means is that most of the functionality is now there, but it's still in testing mode. And for the next stage access will be by invitation only, to keep the numbers down until we're sure everything is functioning correctly.

Everyone from who has already used the facility to design and save a tartan SHOULD find that they are already automatically registered. (If not, please let me know!) Any tartans you've designed have gone from the Gallery. But you should see them yourself when you log in. And you'll find an option on each enabling you to share them in the Gallery again if you want to do so.

Everyone registered with the system can also send up to five further invitations from their member's area. So if you want to give it a go and haven't tried it yet, you can either nag a friendly X-Marker who you know has used it (volunteers post here?) or PM me and I'll send you an Invitation myself.

I'll just explain one or two more wee things, pending all the Help information appearing on the site itself. To buy actual fabrics you need to Finalise your design, after which it cannot be edited further. (This will be made clearer on the site in due course.)

A new piece of functionality is that we will be giving back to you a 10% Royalty on all sales of your designs (yes, even to yourself) in the form of Scotweb Points. So it means people like clubs designing their own tartan can collect a few goodies (either for the designer, or the club) when members order, for example. Thanks to Rex Tremende for this suggestion.

Note also that the couple of fabric ranges for sale are only dummy data at the moment. But early next week it should be accurate. As well as wool, we've got poly-mixes and bulk prices available too, with silk soon.

The other main thing still missing is most of the help information. We've tried to make it intuitive anyway. But lots more hand-holding advice will start popping up shortly.

Anyone wants to take a gander, please PM me...

[Nick Fiddes]

Oh, by the way, if you PM me for a code, please include your email address (as used as your login to the Scotweb members area) as I need it to send you a code via our system.